Betrayed Read online

  Cyn’s womb pulsed as the first tiny orgasm shivered along the length of her inner muscles, caressing his cock with a thousand tiny fingers. Raphael groaned and lowered his head to look at her, his black eyes shooting silver sparks in the dark room.

  “Cyn,” he growled warningly. As if she could control the climax threatening to crash over her. She bit her lip, tasting blood, but the pain didn’t help. Not when Raphael was pumping his hips between her thighs, his penis a velvet-covered steel shaft plunging deeper with every stroke in and out of her body.

  Raphael bent quick as a snake and licked the blood from her lip. He groaned, his cock jerking deep inside her, reacting to the taste of her blood. As if that was the signal her body was waiting for, a delicious sensation stormed over her, making her skin shiver, her nipples tighten, her nerve endings flare. Her stomach clenched as her womb began to contract.

  “Raphael,” she gasped. “I can’t—”

  That’s all she managed to say before the climax was upon her, like a wave crashing to shore. Her back curled up off the bed as her pussy clamped down on Raphael’s cock, and oh God, it felt so very good, she never wanted it to stop. And yet surely no human body could handle this overload of pleasure. Every touch of his skin, the tangle of his fingers against her scalp, the scrape of his hips over the tender flesh of her inner thighs, and more than any of this, the slide of his cock in and out, sending wave after wave of ecstasy rippling up and over her body until, finally, she screamed, begging for it to stop, begging for it to go on forever. She didn’t know what she wanted anymore. She only wanted him.

  * * * *

  Raphael growled as Cyn’s pussy swelled around his dick, gripping him so hard he felt nearly trapped in the satin glove of her body. She shivered, and he could see the ripple of her muscles as the climax took hold of her. Her fingers clenched on his shoulders, nails digging into his skin as she fought against the overwhelming tide of orgasm.

  She whispered his name, keening helplessly, and then she was gone, a picture of beauty as she climaxed beneath him, around him, screaming his name, her body undulating beneath him as she tossed in the throes of their passion.

  Raphael watched her as he plunged in and out of her now soaking wet pussy, the warm cream of her climax covering his cock, making it easier to go deeper yet, her sheath trembling all around him, a thousand touches, caressing him, milking him, urging him to join her in . . . The rush of his climax came from nowhere, boiling up out of his balls and rushing down his cock, hardening him until his skin felt stretched tight enough to burst, until his release splashed against Cyn’s womb, filling her, claiming her, marking her once again, and forever, as his.

  Raphael collapsed on top of Cyn, lowering her now-limp legs one at a time, massaging the strained muscles as he did so. He breathed in the scent of her arousal as he caught his breath, and then shifted his weight to one side, pulling her into the shelter of his body.

  Cyn sighed and draped her arm over his chest. “Love you,” she murmured sleepily, eyes closed.

  Raphael kissed her sweaty forehead. “Rest, my Cyn. The hunt begins tomorrow.”

  “Did you say ‘hunt’?”

  “Go to sleep, lubimaya.”

  She sat up, suddenly wide awake and alert. “Answer the question, fang boy.”

  Raphael sighed deeply. “Five hundred years of living, and I’m reduced to a child’s nickname.” And he’d have it no other way, though he’d never admit it.

  “Poor baby,” she murmured insincerely. “Now answer my question.”

  “What question was that?”

  She slapped his chest playfully. “I don’t buy that for one minute. You remember things that happen in your sleep. What did you mean by ‘hunt’? I thought the idea was to have him follow us home so we could catch him.”

  Quick as only a vampire can be, Raphael wrapped her in his arms and rolled them both until she was beneath him once more. “The best hunters, lubimaya, and I assure you I am the best, know to suit their hunt to the prey. Sometimes you must stalk them to their lair; other times you must set a trap they cannot resist and wait for them to come to you.”

  “Uh huh, but I don’t think too many hunters bait the trap with themselves, so if that’s your plan—”

  “That happens more often than you might think, my Cyn. But I assure you, I am no one’s bait. This is no more than what we discussed. We’re drawing this hunter back to our home territory, where we have the advantage.”

  Cyn eyed him doubtfully. “So, we’re leaving tomorrow tonight for sure?”

  He slapped her ass lovingly. “Only if you permit me to sleep first.”

  “As if I could stop you,” she scoffed. But she lay back as he pulled the covers over them both, and when the sun took him, she was sound asleep at his side.

  * * * *

  Cyn woke to the sound of her cell phone. She reached for it blindly in the total darkness of the room, guided by the bluish gleam of its screen. Lifting it enough to see who was calling, she found Colin Murphy’s handsome face staring back at her, and glanced guiltily over her shoulder to where Raphael lay motionless in his daytime sleep. She rolled out of bed and headed over to the small sitting area to take the call. It was instinct that moved her away from the bed. Intellectually, she knew her voice couldn’t wake him from his daylight sleep, and if he chose to listen she’d have to go a hell of a lot farther than across the room to avoid detection.

  And she had nothing to feel guilty about anyway. There wasn’t anything, had never been anything, romantic between her and Colin, but Raphael’s possessiveness wasn’t a rational thing. And she knew he was unhappy she’d called Murphy in the first place. All of which had her skulking across the room like a thief to answer her own damn cell phone.

  “Yo, Murphy,” she said in a soft voice.

  “Leighton. You know the boyfriend can’t hear you during the day, right?”

  Embarrassment heated her cheeks and had her wanting to snap back at him, but she controlled the reaction. It wasn’t Murphy’s fault she was acting like an idiot. Besides, if he knew it bugged her, he’d never let it go.

  “Sorry,” she said in a normal tone of voice. “It’s automatic. What do you have for me?”

  “Not much. I’ve put feelers out, but snipers for hire are a twitchy group of folks. They don’t exactly operate within the law, and too many of them learned to be paranoid courtesy of Uncle Sam. I have to establish my bona fides before anyone will talk to me, and that’s not easy to do. Especially since you and I both know that if I do manage to get a name, I’ll be turning it over to you, so the boyfriend can torture the poor sap until he gives up his soul.”

  “Alternatively, you could have the girlfriend torture him to the same conclusion,” Cyn said sweetly. Neither one of them were mated to boring accountants, after all. Sophia was every bit as ruthless as Raphael when it came to getting what she wanted.

  “Yeah, but when she does it, it’s sexy as hell.”

  “Now, that’s just sick. I worry about you, Murphy.”

  “I hear that causes wrinkles. Anyway, it doesn’t change the facts on the ground. My old contacts know I work for Sophia, and—”

  “Is that what you tell them? That you work for her?”

  “None of your business what I tell them. They know who she is, know what she is. So, they’re not likely to give me the name of any contractor who hired out to kill a vampire.”

  “Yeah,” Cyn said thoughtfully.

  “If anything turns up, I’ll let you know, but, right now, it doesn’t look good.”

  “Thanks for trying, Murphy. I appreciate it.”

  “You’d do the same for me.”

  “Yeah, I would, you know.”

  “You’re not gonna cry or anything, are you?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “There you go. That’s the Leighton I know. I’ll call if I hear anything,” Murphy said, and hung up without saying good-bye. Typical.

  Cyn disconnected the call, thinking about
catching another hour’s sleep before . . . her eye fell on the time readout on her phone. 7:30 a.m. Shit! How had it gotten so late? What if Sipes had gone out to the site without her? Even knowing she wanted to go with him, Raphael’s head of daylight security might not have called if she didn’t show up. All of Raphael’s people were sensitive to his privacy, but the humans even more so. She scrambled for the bathroom, scrolling through her address book for Sipes’s number, punching it up when she found it.

  “Don’t go without me!” she said when he answered, not even giving him a chance to say anything.

  “Um. Okay.” His voice was tinged with laughter. “Don’t worry about it, Cyn. I briefed my guys this morning during shift change, but made special rounds once the vamps went down just to be sure everyone understood what they needed to look for. I don’t want any more snipers setting up under our noses. I’ve got two-person rotating shifts on every side of the house with binocs up. I was ready to fly extra personnel in, but it sounds like we’re going home tonight.”

  “That’s what I’m told. Okay. I’ll be up there in half an hour.”

  “Take your time.” He hung up without saying good-bye, too. Maybe it was a guy thing.

  True to her word, Cyn was upstairs thirty minutes later. Steve Sipes met her in the hallway, coming from the other direction with three other guards, one of whom looked more like a tech than a guard. He looked fit enough, and he wore a gun strapped to his hip, but between the backpack over one shoulder and the metal case in his opposite hand, he’d be hard-pressed to get to the gun in time to do any good.

  “Perfect timing,” Sipes said, swinging into step with Cyn as they went down the steps into the foyer and filed out through the daylight entrance. By design, the only door available during the day was too narrow for more than one adult at a time. It was cut into one of the steel shutters which rolled down automatically at sunrise to cover every door and window in the building, and required a ten digit security code to open.

  “I went out there with Juro and the others earlier,” Sipes continued as they piled into the waiting SUV. “It was still dark, obviously, but he’s confident they located the place where the sniper holed up. I agree with him, especially now that I’ve seen the location in daylight.”

  “You’ve already been out there this morning?” Cyn asked.

  “Not yet. But Juro’s people left a marker, and I went up on the roof as soon as there was enough light to see by. I wanted to check the angle and line of sight to the deck outside your suite. And there’s no doubt the shot could have come from there. Juro said it’s the same place you suggested last night.”

  Cyn nodded. “It was the only place that made sense. Either that or the shot came from a lot farther away.”

  “And why take the longer shot if you don’t have to, right? I ranged it this morning. It’s right around seven hundred seventy-six yards, give or take a yard. A very doable shot, but this particular sniper doesn’t seem to have understood vamps all that well. Clearly, he didn’t count on Raphael’s speed in reacting, or, for that matter, his ability to hear the shot before a human could. Pretty damn impressive, that. But anyway, my point is, the shooter didn’t know what he was dealing with.”

  “Exactly.”

  By that time, they were down on the valley floor and Cyn could already see the orange marker Juro’s people had set up on the hillside to mark the sniper’s hiding place.

  “That’s it?” she asked unnecessarily.

  “Yeah.” Sipes tapped the driver on the shoulder. “We’ll park right over there,” he said, gesturing to an area just short of the promontory itself. “I want to see if I can spot the path he took to get up there. The vamps were pretty careful last night to stick to the rocks, but I doubt our sniper friend has their ability. And I’ll bet he was scrambling to get down quickly once he realized he’d missed, and Raphael’s security would be coming for him. That should make his route easier to locate, and, with luck, maybe we’ll find something he left behind.”

  The tech—his name was Brian, and Sipes had assured her that he could shoot the gun on his hip once he got to it—led the way up the hillside. They’d found the sniper’s path easily. It was just above where he’d parked his truck, which had left clear tracks on the valley floor. Brian told them confidently that their sniper had indeed driven a truck, and a four-wheel drive at that, though Cyn had tuned out his explanation for how he knew that. All she cared about was that the dry air, and the absence of any significant breeze, had served them in good stead by preserving the tire tracks and the sniper’s footprints in almost pristine condition. The vamps, as Sipes confirmed, had actually climbed up the opposite side of the promontory, which was another bit of good fortune. It happened to be the most direct route, which was why the vamps had chosen it, its steepness being no obstacle for them.

  Once they reached the sniper’s former hide, Cyn was forced to sit on a convenient boulder, waiting while the forensic tech did his thing. It was frustrating, but even she could see the wisdom of doing it that way. It was also boring as hell, and she found herself staring down the valley at the shuttered window of her and Raphael’s bedroom suite. The place she was sitting was slightly above the shooter’s position, but nearly aligned, giving her close to the same view up the valley that he would have had. They’d already identified the boulder he’d used to stabilize his rifle, revealed by small scrapes in the dirt from where he’d set up and also from the legs of the bipod. She tried to imagine the sniper leaning against the rock, Remington 700 leveled on its bipod attachment, the butt tucked into his shoulder and barrel pointing at the sliding glass door, waiting for Raphael to appear, to come and talk to her. She tried to imagine that fraction in time between when the shooter settled the crosshairs and when his finger started to squeeze. Had he wondered who this big man was he was about to murder? Had he even known Raphael was a vampire? Had he cared?

  Probably not, she reasoned. She was being too emotional, attaching sentiment to what for the shooter was just another job. After all, he wasn’t the first contract killer in the world, and certainly wouldn’t be the last. But this particular killer had gone after the one person she loved more than any other person in the world, so she cut herself some slack. Not too much slack, however. She shifted her gaze, searching the perimeter of the small circle of boulders the sniper had chosen to hide in. It really was an ideal location, sheltered from casual observation on all sides. The brush all around and in between the boulders was torn up or crushed, evidence of the shooter’s presence, and also that he’d likely spent most of the day concealed here. Sipes theorized that he would have arrived before dawn the previous day. But that was based largely on the fact that Sipes didn’t want to believe anyone could have driven up the valley floor and climbed into the rocks toting that much gear without his people noticing. Cyn wasn’t so sure about that. In her experience, security people tended to focus on imminent threats, not some guy rock climbing nearly 800 yards in the distance.

  She was convinced the shooter had hidden out here for at least several hours, though. Which meant he had to have packed in supplies. He could have gotten by on energy bars for food, but water was a necessity. Unfortunately, he seemed to have done an admirable job of cleaning up after himself, despite his hurried departure. The tech, Brian, glanced up at her as he lowered his camera. He’d been snapping close-ups of the location, shooting up the valley toward the house, and then crouching down to catch the hide itself, including extreme close-ups of the various marks left behind on the boulders.

  “He missed,” Brian said, as he packed the camera in the metal case he’d brought with him, “but he was a pro. There’s plenty of evidence someone was here, but nothing so far to identify anyone specifically. I was hoping he’d gotten sloppy in the dark, but so far, nothing.”

  Cyn’s gaze sharpened as she glimpsed a flash of light on a dull surface.

  “Brian,” she said, staring hard. “Is that what I think it is?” She pointed down the hill beyond the nest, on
the side the vamps had come up in the dark last night.

  He gave her a puzzled look, then turned slowly, following the line of her finger.

  “Ooooh, baby,” he breathed after a while. “Come to Papa.”

  * * * *

  “It might be nothing,” Brian warned, as they drove back to the big house. “Lots of people have been on the hill before our guy. One of the vamps might simply have kicked up an old piece of trash.”

  “Sure,” Cyn agreed readily. “But it might also be something. The shooter was stuck up there most of the day. He had to have packed a lot of water in with him. And if he left in a hurry, he might have kicked an empty bottle down the hill without noticing, especially in the dark.”

  Brian made a face. “Don’t get your hopes up. He probably wore gloves. But even if that’s his bottle, and even if I can get a fingerprint, it won’t do me any good unless it’s on file somewhere we can access.”

  “How long before we know?”

  “As soon as I get back to the lab I’ll know if I have a workable print. But then I have to lift it off and send it through the various databases looking for a match. And we still don’t know this is even from our guy.”

  Cyn nodded, but she didn’t believe him. This was from their shooter. She knew it in her gut.

  “Okay, call me with anything as soon as you have it. We’re leaving at sunset.”

  “Right. I’m going with you, but don’t worry. The communication suites on Raphael’s jets are second to none. Even if an ID pops while we’re in the air, I’ll know about it. Assuming one does.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” What was it with scientists, anyway? Always wanting proof. Sheesh.

  She grinned at the thought and was still grinning as she punched in the security code that let her back into the vault where Raphael slept soundly. They had their potential assassin. And it was only a matter of time before they had him in chains where he belonged.